Christmas 2009: Challenge 1
by LadyFlamewing
Summary: Written for LiveJournal's yandered, with the prompt for a Jin/Touya fic. Pretty much safe and sweet, this did a lot to remind me of how many awesome secondary characters YYH has.


Theoretically, it's by mutual agreement that the four meet up to watch the rest of the Dark Tournament matches (after their injured members have had a little time to heal), but it's fairly clear to Touya that he's the least enthused about the prospect.

Touya would like nothing more than to retreat to the shadows, where he feels he belongs - to try and rebuild the Asuka clan as best he can, looking for students of the deceased members who can be trained into full-fledged _shinobi_. He has tried for the light and been soundly defeated - not to mention that he has been taught the painful lesson that certain members of his clan were not who he thought they were.

But the others - and it is perhaps most noticeable in Jin, but only because Touya knows him best - have found something to stay for: something more than the simple thrill of watching the fights. They have found something (or someone, more accurately) that brings a light to their eyes when they talk about it - someone who has proven himself a source of inspiration: Urameshi Yusuke.

He supposes he's at a disadvantage, though - he spent most of Jin's fight against Urameshi unconscious, and thus has no idea what happened (other than the fact that Jin must have lost, somehow). For him, it is actually _Kurama_ who has made him think - about what he wants, about what he's going to do now that everything has changed. But for Kurama to be willingly following Urameshi (and it _is_ willing, that much Touya is sure of - there is a _look_ in the fox-demon's eyes that is unmistakable), there must be something special about him, and it is curiosity about what that something really is that convinces Touya to tag along with the others.

He sees it, though, not long into the match with Toguro. The way Urameshi's spirit is nigh-unbreakable, the way his _reiki_ pulses beneath his skin like something yearning to be released - and the way it spreads protectively over the entire crowd, friend and foe alike, when he _does_ release it. Yes, Touya can see why Urameshi is so loved by his team and by the people who have gone up against him in earnest - but it doesn't have quite the same effect on him as it has had on the others.

Because, yes - he finds he has a developing respect for Urameshi, and (though he knows it would be futile) he vows that if the worst should happen, he will step in and do what he can to help - but Touya does not find himself thinking of Urameshi as his light. Instead, he finds himself learning a very different lesson - one which he thinks Kurama tried to teach him, in the chaos of battle.

Maybe this whole quest for light...maybe he's been going about it all wrong. To be honest, he hadn't really given it much thought before latching onto the idea - it was tempting, the way Risho posed it to them, and Touya couldn't deny that he longed for something to chase away the shadows that seemed to cling to him. But maybe he took it too literally. Watching Jin, and that odd gleam in his eyes as he watches Urameshi, Touya can't help but think that no one bothered to tell him there are different _kinds_ of light.

And maybe...maybe he's had his own all along.

His prolonged gaze finally draws Jin's attention, and the other _shinobi_ glances over with his best attempt at a concerned look - though he's too involved in the match, Touya can tell, to quell the grin that bares his fangs or the excited quivering of his long ears.

"Something wrong?" he asks, and Touya just shakes his head, feeling the ghost of a smile flicker across his face - and knowing that Jin will catch it. The thought makes an odd sort of warmth bloom inside his chest, and he wonders if the unfamiliarity of the feeling means that he's right.

He spares a moment to wonder if they really need to return to the Makai at all - if maybe the two of them might not just travel on their own for a while, living in their own light - before he finally lets himself be swept away in the heat of battle and the new (but _right_, he knows, somehow) surge of emotion coiling in the pit of his stomach: white-hot and so very _bright_.


End file.
